Distinctly Montana Magazine

S U M M E R 2 0 1 9 S P E C I A L S E C T I O N • M Y M O N T A N A H O M E 91 by KAREEN ERBE I F YOU'RE THE TYPE OF PERSON WHO LIKES TO DIG IN THE DIRT, then chances are you've come across the term permac- ulture because it's become a buzz word in the sustainability field. Permaculture is a design approach for sustainable living and land use that is rooted in the observation of natural systems. Coined in the 1970s by Australians Bill Mollison and David Holmgren, it synthesizes traditional knowledge with modern science, providing a set of ethics and principles that teach us how to grow our own food, build natural homes, catch rainwater, harness energy, and restore degraded landscapes. e word permaculture originally referred to "permanent agriculture" but has been expanded to include "permanent culture," since the social aspects of people living together are fundamental to a truly sustainable system. I came to permaculture in my late twenties, after spending the first couple decades of my life feeling angry, sad, or help- less in the face of the ecological crises I would read about in the news—water and air pollution, soil degradation, habitat destruction, species extinction—the list was and remains end- less. When I started looking for solutions, it didn't take me long to find permaculture. Permaculture claims that many of the crises that we face today are not so much a lack of technology or intelligence, they are due to a lack of design or dumb design. e scale of a large cattle farm, for example, creates a waste product like manure and yet, if designed differently, that waste product would be a resource, recycled back into our agricultural land. Houses, especially during cold Montana winters, can consume an enormous amount of energy. If designed with south-facing windows that take advantage of the passive solar heat gain, you could cut down on energy costs. If you capture rainwater off your roof and add an attached greenhouse to grow food, then you've decreased your heating, water and grocery bills through smart design. Permaculture is guided by three ethics: care of the earth, care of people, and fair share. While the first two ethics need no real explanation, the third ethic means that any surplus that you have should be reinvested back into the first two ethics. In other words, if you have extra garden veggies, give them to your friends or sell them at the market; if you have extra time, help your neighbor preserve her tomatoes; extra compost or manure—donate it to the community garden. A set of design principles has evolved to inform how you go about transforming a site into a permaculture property. Once you understand these principles you can apply them at any scale—from a small backyard to a neighborhood to a 100-acre property. Here are some of those principles: U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U UU U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U UU U U U U MARY SCHAAD (2) d d IN PERMACULTURE, EVERY COMPONENT IN YOUR SYSTEM (E.G. GREENHOUSE, POND, GARDEN, COMPOST PILE) SHOULD PERFORM MULTIPLE FUNCTIONS.

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